Transport demand management strategies help wane commuters off the private car and make sustainable transport alternatives more viable, easing congestion and improving quality of life in cities. Photo by Mariana Gil/EMBARQ Brasil.

The “People-oriented Cities” series – exclusive to TheCityFix and Insights – explores how cities can become more sustainable and livable through transit-oriented development (TOD). The nine-part series addresses different urban design techniques and trends that reorient cities around people rather than cars.

Creating safer, more sustainable cities means designing them to move people, not cars. One way to achieve this goal is transport demand management.

What is transport demand management?

Transport demand management refers to a set of strategies that maximize urban mobility by limiting the unnecessary use of private cars. These strategies recognize that cars will always play a role in the make-up of a city, and work to manage car use by promoting more sustainable and integrated transport options. Furthermore, they make streets safer for all commuters – drivers, cyclists, and pedestrians.

To get anywhere in a city, travelers decide what mode of transport to use, which route to take, and which is the most convenient way to go. Transport demand management focuses on each of these links within a city’s transport system, cutting car-dependence and making sustainable transport more attractive.

Build up sustainable mobility options

Car-oriented cities are sprawling and dispersed, leaving a disproportionate amount of space for cars at the expense of other modes of transport. Even with carpool lanes and car-sharing schemes, which use road space more efficiently, private cars still gridlock city streets. For example, it takes up to 50 times more road space for cars to carry the same number of people as the average public transport vehicle in Mexico City, based on the city’s average occupancy of 1.21 passengers per car.

But without viable alternatives, commuters are left with few options beyond the car. The availability of public transport that connects people’s homes to schools or employment centers can make for a better, shorter commute and reduce traffic congestion, as everyday commutes make up nearly 30% of total vehicle traffic in North American cities.

Alternative mobility options such as walking and cycling become more feasible when job opportunities are closer to residential areas. Commuting by car can be avoided by providing “home office” and “live-work” options. Graphic by EMBARQ.

Integrate car travel with other forms of transport

Cars can be an efficient piece of urban transportation systems, but only if integrated with more sustainable modes like bus rapid transit (BRT), metro, and active transport. Commuters can easily drive to a designated parking lot and take public transport or walk to their destinations. These park-and-ride or park-and-walk programs have proven to be successful before sporting events such as the 2011 Pan-American Olympics in Guadalajara, where only 10% of attendees parked outside the main stadium.

Design safer streets

Street design is also a key factor. Car-oriented cities are designed to move vehicles at high speeds. While this makes motorized mobility convenient, it also increases the risk of traffic crashes, inhibits access to other means of transport, and endangers pedestrians and cyclists.

Parking lots can be put to better use through temporary conversion into a productive space, like a public market. The city of San Francisco’s Pavement to Parks Program, for example, retrofits parking spaces into public spaces. Graphic by EMBARQ.

People-oriented cities recognize the car as part of a larger sustainable mobility strategy, and must therefore provide solutions to adequately manage car use. Transport demand management can improve city-dwellers’ quality of life, but only if local governments, urban planners, and other stakeholders apply these strategies in conjunction with complementary urban mobility strategies. In the end, the smartest city is not the one that eliminates cars, but the one that can integrate them into a sustainable network of urban mobility options.

Stay tuned for the next entry in the “People-oriented Cities” series, which will address the role of public spaces and natural resources in effective transit-oriented development. For more on the transit-oriented development paradigm, download EMBARQ’s Transit-oriented Development Guide for Urban Communities.

In different origin we have found different types of protocols; especially in urban sector where the population density is quite high and people loves to adopt the concept of self driving. So I must say that transportation system is completely depending upon modern features like smarter cities and smarter driving etc. So in big cities we have found big opportunities to develop the way of transportation system.